Elisha Daemon

by E. C. Ambrose

  Slowing his racing heart and finding his strength, Elisha pushed himself to his feet and remembered that he had been a king. He set aside humility and donned instead the mantle of power. “Of course you do. But I don’t think you are being completely honest, Brother, not with me, possibly not with yourself. They have set you this task, the most adept among them, but you came to me first.”

  “Do not lower yourself to flattery, Brother—and do not think I am doing you a favor, not after all you have done to me.” Vertuollo’s eyes flashed, his robe rippling, and Jude shivered, his glance tracing the tall figure beside him, then cast back to the ground.

  Through the contact, a hint of emotion, slippery, as if Vertuollo were, indeed, lying. Curious, if Elisha, playing upon the brotherhood Vertuollo had claimed, had guessed at the truth. The mancers—Renart at their head—needed Vertuollo to confront Elisha. Who else could match his skill with the Valley? But the count strained against the role they assigned him. Because of their brotherhood? Because if Jude were as a younger brother to Elisha, then so was Jude to Vertuollo himself?

  “Certainly not, but you’re also a practical man. If you take this child to England to spread the plague, you know that I will never rest until every last one of your kind is destroyed.” The shepherd or the wolf? Faced with the ruin of England, that was no choice at all. Elisha released a little of his armor and allowed the swelling torrent of the Valley to infuse him with its power until his hair shivered and his skin sparked, his breath coming in clouds of ice that melted into the French sunlight. “They want you to kill England, to draw me back to save it—but you know better. Why should we both lose, me losing my country, and you, every last one of you, losing this war. You cannot kill me, Brother, you know that. Will the fight make me wish I were dead? You know exactly what that kind of loss feels like. Every martyr I lose will only make me stronger, Brother. You and your kind have to kill them personally in order to suck up their strength, I don’t. Every death they cause is making me stronger.”

  Strangers gathered near the bridge edged away from the silent confrontation, pulling their shawls tighter, clutching their crosses.

  “What would you do then, to save England?” Vertuollo let his shimmer turn warm, almost golden, inviting. “Are you through trying to save the world?”

  “It cannot be saved,” Elisha answered, and the truth of those words filled him with a sorrow deeper than rivers, deeper than death. “What would you have me do?”

  “You must leave Europe and never return. You must never again step foot out of England, nor pursue any foreigner beyond your borders, nor allow any of your acolytes to do so, nor defend them when they have.”

  “That’s a lot to ask.”

  Vertuollo briefly displayed the vial, letting it wink in the sunlight. “In return, you will have everything, and everyone, you have ever loved. Brother.”

  The single word conjured memories of his own brother’s death, captured in that vial. Vertuollo knew precisely what he held—and was that a note of pity in the count’s careful projection? The future of England hung before him, haunted by the faces of those he had already lost: Mordecai, Martin, Rosalyn, Walter, Randall—as well as by the faces of those who remained: Allyson, Sundrop, Alfleda, Helena, his infant son . . . Thomas, his beloved king.

  In exchange for the grand ruins of Rome, the royalty of Germany, the rich fields of France, the legion of clerics both faithful and not, the terrified knots of the Jewish communities, Queen Margaret, Isaac and his family, the Pope, and the poet. Katherine, Harald, Jude.

  “They will let you make this bargain, all on your own?”

  Vertuollo hesitated, another tiny gap in his projection of command. “They will seek some sort of surety.”

  Elisha laughed, a great and terrible mocking laughter. “Do not tempt me with bargains you cannot keep, Brother, I will need surety as well.”

  The count drew down a breath that he expelled in a roil of mist. “I will need time to bring them to the proper understanding. And many will want to see for themselves.”

  “Two days, then I go hunting.”

  “They have a chapel—”

  “I’ve seen it.” Elisha smiled at Vertuollo’s surprise. The Pope’s parapet had shown him the map of the city, with that darker hollow where the mancers did their slaying. “Get them there, every one of them that would be convinced of my word. They must all abide by this agreement, or they, too, will pay the price.”

  The count gave a slight, gracious tip of his head, but Elisha stepped up even as the count retreated. “One more thing. Jude goes with me.”

  Vertuollo paused, his glance given to the child at his side. “What if he does not choose to? He has told me how you encourage him to choose. What if he has chosen strength over weakness? Wealth over misery?”

  Elisha, too, looked to the boy. Jude stared back at him, his eyes round and moist, his presence thoroughly deflected. “I would hope he would choose life, Brother, that no others should suffer the pain that he has known.” Jude’s gaze dropped, and Elisha regarded the count. “I would wish the same for you.”

  “Naïve as a child, just as the Salernitan said.”

  “Was your own son ever so innocent?”

  Vertuollo’s pale eyes narrowed, then he said, “In two days.”

  Elisha matched his slight bow. Then the count and the boy were gone. Elisha put off the raiment of death and found his trembling breath. Had he truly just stood toe to toe with Vertuollo and bargained for the safety of England? At what cost? Two days until he could reclaim the vial and the boy—if he would come—and finally turn away from the bloody plague and go home. Even as he thought it, he knew it would not be that easy.

  The scent of incense swirled in the wind around him, and he turned to find the papal procession regrouping to return to the palace, the guards at the wall stepping aside. Instead of the procession entering, however, a small party raced out, led by Guy de Chauliac, Brigit and Gretchen behind him, and the young barber as well.

  “Your Holiness!” Guy shouted. “What can you be thinking, to walk out in the city without so much as a kerchief for your face or a pair of torches to ward off the pestilence?”

  “I was thinking of the health of my flock, more than my own.” Clement’s chin rose as he found Elisha on the hillside just beyond. Guy and his party followed the look, the doctor’s face a furious red. “It has elevated their souls to witness this act, and to participate in the blessing. In the face of sickness and despair, it is the torch of faith that we require, and that flame burns strong in Avignon.”

  A cheer rose around him, people pressing close, hands waving as they sought his blessing and his touch. Elisha had reminded the Pope that his voice could wield this power, and Clement had taken up his strength. Already, his flock grew stronger as well. Cardinal Renart’s shuttered gaze followed Elisha as he made his way past the crowd. Katherine lurked at the periphery, Harald among the soldiers.

  Elisha walked quickly, ignoring the cardinal, cutting through the soldiers with a muttered, “Perdone,” catching Harald’s eye. He stumbled and let Harald’s hand balance him. “The synagogue, tonight,” he sent, registering Harald’s surprise. “Bring Katherine.” Then he went to find his first good meal in weeks. Even a wolf must be sustained.

  • • •

  The jittery strength of the Valley would not let him settle, and Elisha paced the streets of the city, noticing the mancers who noticed him, strangers, but clearly aware. The Valley whispered constantly with their movements; Vertuollo had been busy. The mancers claimed that England could be defended from the plague, but what it needed, what the world needed, was to be defended from them, and Elisha was the only person who might be able to do that. Restless, he walked until evening brought him to the synagogue, where he explained his need to the local Jews, with the help of Menahem, the leader of the Roman Jews recently arrived. Many had heard of him from t
heir relatives and trading partners in Germany and Italy, but their furtive glances and hesitant speech suggested they had heard, too, about the killings in those places. Elisha produced the letters he had from the rabbi of Heidelberg and finally won their permission to meet there, in the one place he could be sure there were no relics.

  “A synagogue? Am I even allowed inside?” Katherine peeked around the door frame.

  “The mancers can’t get in,” Elisha said as she stepped through and lowered the hood that hid her face. A hint of blush in her cheeks heightened her beauty, and Elisha armored himself against what he must do, and armored his heart against her reaction. “And there’s no need to enter the sanctuary, there’s a study chamber over here. Where’s—”

  Harald slid through from the other direction. “There’s a curfew for the Jews, given all the recent violence. We’ll need to be out by full nightfall, unless we travel the other road.”

  “I’d rather not; that would only attract the mancers’ attention.” The hundred-year-old building radiated a calm that felt absent in the rest of the city, and Elisha felt grateful all over again for the Jews allowing him inside. While the churches outside the Jewish quarter teemed with the sick and the dying, those desperate to log their prayers with God, the Jews apparently had no expectation of that kind of intervention. Instead, they cleaned their houses and closed their doors. In the study, Elisha lit a pair of candles, illuminating scrolls and books inscribed with strange characters, and paintings both beautiful and foreign.

  Katherine eyed the room, edging around the lectern and taking a seat where a large book rested open. “It is still hard to overcome all that I’ve heard about the Jews and think these books are not demonic, and their keepers are not murderers.”

  Harald and Elisha exchanged a glance. They were both of them murderers, and Katherine a necromancer. The idea of dangerous books and deadly scholars almost brought a return of that half-mad laughter, but Elisha held it in check. “I have made a bargain with the mancers, a bargain to save England.”

  “What? I don’t understand,” said Katherine, but Harald grew still, listening as Elisha explained about the count and the vial. Before he had even stopped speaking, she came to her feet, fury swelling in her presence.

  “So you will abandon all of us, and all of the people we’re fighting to save?”

  “What would you have me do?” He opened his hands, inviting any other option. “You’ve seen what I have seen, you know what I know. Most of it anyhow. When I accepted the plague into my own body, I saw precisely how quickly it spreads and how insidious are its messengers. I can’t save the world.”

  “Instead, you’ll let it burn, and us along with it.”

  He shook his head. “I bought us two days, Katherine. Go back to Germany and warn them, everyone you can. Tell them how the plague spreads, how to watch out for it. If you can, give them talismans cold enough to fend it off—one by one, it should work.”

  She cut the air with a gesture, as if she could cut off his words, and he caught her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Warn them, Katherine, then get yourself to England and be safe.”

  “You’re running away, and you want me to run, too. I won’t have it. After the things I’ve done and the things I’ve seen, how can I turn coward now?”

  Harald spoke up for the first time. “Think of it as withdrawing to the keep. The mancers have placed this world under siege, we can at least hold the line somewhere. England is small, it’s an island. The water and the salt will aid in its defense.”

  Katherine drew herself up, regaining control. “What makes you think you can trust them?”

  “Nothing at all. It’s why I need you gone. All of you.” He cut his gaze toward Harald. “I will give them a show of power they’ll not soon forget, but it’s risky. If they get frightened or angry, they’ll strike back, and I don’t want you in danger.” He softened his voice. “If I could, I’d send the Pope and the Jews as well.”

  “As it is, I’ll be exhausted—even to pass twice through the Valley in a day is a lot for me, and I’ll need to visit Heidelberg, Bad Stollhein, and a few other places as well.” Katherine blinked back tears. “Even without taking anyone along, it would be a trial.”

  “Don’t worry over me, Margravine,” Harald offered. “I’ll make my own way. It may be useful to have eyes and ears here in France for a time, especially if you two must be gone.”

  Elisha offered a grateful glance. “Thank you, Harald.”

  Katherine sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “Then what, you’ll come to England when you get the vial?”

  “And Jude. I’m not leaving without him.”

  “The boy betrayed you, Elisha—he told them about the vial, he gave them exactly what they need to entrap you!”

  He jerked away from her. “He certainly did not!” Even as the words flew, Elisha wondered if they were true. Why had Jude gone to the mancers? Did he even want Elisha to reclaim him? If he had simply run away and been seized, then surely he would have fought them, screaming and struggling as he always did. Instead, he listened to music in a garden, and stood calmly at Vertuollo’s side—why? Because the count spoke Hungarian?

  “It is worth considering how they knew,” Harald said calmly. “Did Gretchen know?”

  “She knew it was important to me, but not why.” Elisha rubbed his temple. “Although I did take her to England once, she’s a sensitive, she might have guessed how we traveled. I’m not convinced she trusts the mancers well enough to betray another magus, even me. She’s not a part of the mancer cause, she’s only here as handmaiden to Brigit.”

  “You told us about the vial at the abbey in Heidelberg: the Margravine, Isaac, Gilles, and myself.”

  “It certainly wasn’t me,” Katherine protested immediately, looking wounded simply to be on the list. “Where is Gilles, by the way? What’s happened to him?”

  “The plague. He caught it at Salerno.”

  “Before or after he met Jude?”

  Harald cleared his throat and said, “Ironic, to fall ill at a medical school.”

  “Sadly common to get sick in hospital—I’ve always said those places are deadly.” Elisha looked away, his own eyes stinging. He learned what to do too late to save Gilles, the foolish and faithful. Or was he? Elisha considered the events surrounding Gilles’s death in a new light. “I took Gilles to die in Rome, at San Giovanni. Shortly after we arrived, Jude ran from me”—he shot a dark look at Katherine to forestall any further recriminations against the boy—“and Danek seized him. I followed to get him back, and when I returned, I found out Gilles had had a visitor in my absence, Count Vertuollo. Vertuollo wanted me to come to him, to talk with him, but Gilles may have welcomed the contact. He may well have told the count how to draw me out.”

  “Why should Gilles, of all people, betray you? He venerated you.” Katherine stalked the far side of the room, glaring at him, then at the Jewish books all around her.

  “Because he believed I would rise up in glory to vanquish my enemies. He was talking about it right to the end.” Elisha swallowed. “He might have said something to ensure that would happen. How could I defeat those I did not confront?”

  “And now you are running from them again.”

  “If you have a better plan, I am open to it.” He flung wide his hands, his palms aching. “Look, Katherine, we’ve just agreed I cannot save the world. This plague is too much, even for me. If I can stop it somewhere, anywhere, it will be better than nothing, better than letting them run every nation into madness.”

  Katherine gave a cry of frustration or fury. She stood a moment, chest heaving with emotion, then her head hung, and finally she said, “I will warn the others. How am I to get to England when I’m done? And my sons are coming, too, of course.”

  “Of course they are.” Her acquiescence, however grudging, lightened his heart. “Look for the relics of
Saint Louis. The French gave one to the heir to the throne of England, at the behest of the mancers. It’s still in the royal chapel.”

  She let out a breath of laughter. “You would deliver me directly into the chapel of the king?”

  “King Thomas is my supporter, as is his servant Pernel and many others at the Tower. They are the ones who need to understand about the plague, and they will bring you to the magi.”

  “But Thomas is king, why should he listen to me?”

  “Because you and he both know me in ways that no one else can.”

  Her eyes locked to his, brow slightly furrowed, then lifting, her lips parting as she knew the truth. She flung up her hood to hide her face and shoved past them to the door, but not before he saw the sheen of tears.

  Chapter 33

  For a moment, both men stood silent, as if Katherine’s departure had deflated them, then Harald turned to Elisha, a graceful pivot, as if in a dance. “That was nicely done, a perfectly laid trap for a woman who loves you. How better to defeat her than to force her to go to the man you love.” Harald folded his arms. “Now, tell me the real plan.”

  For a moment, Elisha thought of denying it, but Harald’s sharp eyes and the grim set of his mouth suggested he knew exactly what Elisha was thinking. Still, his throat felt dry, his chest too tight as he sank into a chair, ceding the higher ground and articulating the truth for the first time. “I can’t save England; the plague spreads too quickly, in too many ways. The disease’ll take a little longer to cross the water, and it might not survive well in the north, but it will get there. I hope the mancers don’t know that I know it.” He let out a shuddering breath, staring at a page of the open book, the Hebrew letters dark and strong as engravings in a frame the shape of a gravestone.

  “You’re letting the mancers think that you believe you can save England—why?”

  “So they think they have me. Which they do, really.” He ran a finger lightly over his bandaged palm, picturing the scar that pierced him, just there. “I can’t save my country or my friends from the plague. I can’t save the world from it, but it’s not the only problem, it’s not even the real problem—it’s just a sickness, terrible as it is, and we have faced sickness before. It’s the mancers that are the real threat. I can’t save the world, but I may be able to cure it. To undertake a surgical solution and excise the corruption before it spreads any further.”